Chapter 18: The Recording

The tables went dark at midnight on Tuesday.

Nobody went home.

Lowell Hatch was still gone.

The bail company turned out to be a shell with a post office box, and the detectives had not found him in two days.

I kept his recorder in my pocket, and I did not let myself wonder who had him.

Four thousand people stood on the floor of the Silver Lark with their phone lights on, and Dee passed out free coffee from the bar.

At noon on Wednesday the same room on the ninth floor was packed to the walls.

Two news crews stood at the back with their cameras up.

I sat at the front table in my cleaning uniform, with my phone in my fist.

Dario sat beside me.

The woman who had voted no sat at the bench between the chair and the man with the pen, and she was sitting up straight.

"We are here," said the chair, "on the matter of the license."

Aldo's lawyer stood.

"The family calls Rocco Corvino."

Rocco walked to the stand in a new suit, with a fresh haircut.

He did not look at me.

He raised his right hand and swore, and then he turned to the room and gave the cameras a grieving face.

"I loved my cousin," he said. "I still do. But he married a woman off the street who needed a roof, and she turned him against his own blood."

"Objection," I said. "That isn't a question."

"Sit down, Mrs. Corvino," said the chair.

"He's lying under oath."

"You'll have your turn."

Rocco went on for ten minutes.

He said I had forced my way into the casino as a cleaner to trap a rich man.

He said Lowell Hatch had been a loyal servant who was framed.

Dario's hand tightened on my knee under the table, and I put my own over it.

"Not yet," I whispered.

At last the chair nodded at me.

"Mrs. Corvino. Your questions."

I stood.

My legs were steady, and I did not know where that had come from.

"Mr. Corvino. Do you know a company called Lark Linen?"

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